Home Guard who destroyed salary muster rolls arrested

Greater Noida: Gautam Buddh Nagar Police have arrested one accused behind the fire incident that occurred at district Home Guards commandant office at Surajpur area of Greater Noida on the intervening night of 18-19 November, which completely damaged the box containing the salary muster rolls of Home Guards along with attendance log of all the personnel.

The police arrested Home Guard Platoon Commandant Rajiv Kumar, a native of Hapur district in connection with the incident. Cops said that Kumar was the complainant in the Home Guard scam, and reported the incident to the Senior Superintendent of Police, Vaibhav Krishna in July, 2019.

"Kumar had himself reported the issue of inflated attendance to me in July this year. He had told me that the Home Guard personnel deployed at the district were marking false attendance so that they could withdraw their salaries fraudulently. However, during police interrogations he confessed to having put the box containing muster rolls of Home Guards attendance on fire, since he too was also involved in the irregularities, and feared about his name being disclosed," opined Krishna.

The fire incident was a major blow to the ongoing investigation in the Home Guard scam, as the attendance logs which were yet to be probed were completely damaged in it.

An FIR was registered at Surajpur Police station, and a two-member forensic team was called from Gujarat to collect the samples from the spot. The SSP had ordered an SIT investigation. During the course of the investigation, Kumar was picked up by the CCTV footage installed at the Home Guards. He was identified by the way he walked.

"During interrogations, the accused told the police that he was also involved in the scam and had tempered with the attendance logs of the Home Guards. He also told the police that he was upset with his department as even after registering a complaint in July this year, the Home Guard department did not take any action against the present Divisional Commandant, Ram Narayan Chaurasiya, even after

he was found guilty in the salary scam. He was afraid that the department might wrap up the investigations and will take actions against only the junior officials, including him. Apart from this, Kumar was also annoyed as the 50 per cent advance payment which was supposed to be paid to the Home Guards deployed on election duty during the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections was not dispersed off, which he had reported to the senior officials," added Krishna.

The SSP went on to add that the accused took petrol from the motorcycles parked at the Home Guard commandant office and set fire to the box containing muster rolls.

"On the night of incident, Kumar had entered the district Home Guard commandant office by climbing boundary the wall and broke the lock of the room where the box containing muster rolls were kept," the SSP opined.

The police have recovered an iron rod that was used by the accused to break the lock and an empty bottle in which he carried the petrol. The SSP congratulated the investigating team for successfully conducting the investigation and declared a reward of Rs 25, 000 to the team.